Apartment and retail complex at Wilshire and La Brea is underway

A rendering of the Wilshire at La Brea residential and retail complex, looking… (TCA Architects )

Work is underway on a $105-million apartment and retail development at the crossroads of two major Los Angeles thoroughfares, Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue.

The six-story complex called Wilshire at La Brea is being erected by San Francisco apartment developer BRE Properties. It will house 480 residential units and fill the block at the southeast corner of the intersection.

“Through careful planning, this project comes to market at the right time and provides much-needed housing in an area already rich with valuable amenities and easy access to mass transit,” BRE Vice President John Selindh said.

The development is one of the first to take advantage of a new city planning policy that allows for replacement of obsolete structures to encourage higher density in urban infill areas, according to architect Thomas Cox, a principal at Los Angeles-based TCA Architects, who designed the project.

Over the objections of some preservationists, BRE razed a building that was completed in 1965 to house a Columbia Savings branch and was used most recently as a church. Its stained-glass ceiling was listed for auction in 2010.

Wilshire at La Brea will have shops and restaurants along both streets, said Steve Pellegren of Bernards, the Los Angeles contractor building the complex. It will include two swimming pools, a fitness center and 997 parking spaces in a subterranean garage.

“This is a very high-density project, directly in the middle of one of the city’s hottest redevelopment areas,” Pellegren said.